Amateur Night In New York: Triumph and Terror at the Apollo

By Roger Franklin

From the moment he rolled out of bed, Arthur Johnson found himself locked in silent combat with a sense of escalating dread. Over breakfast and as he walked to work through Brooklyn's shattered Brownsville section, the power of positive thinking had kept the terror at bay: tonight he'd be making his singing debut at Harlem's Apollo Theater, and that was obviously something to worry about. But the venue shouldn't matter to a real pro, he told himself over and over. If a man hits the right notes in the shower, he can do the same thing in front of 1,500 people. Tonight was amateur night, his first public step on the road to fame.

At first, the strategy worked well enough. But then, as the subway rattled north toward Harlem, Arthur's demons returned. Even above the racket of the wheels, he could hear them sniggering at his fantasies of stardom, playing good cop-bad cop with his head. One voice demanded to be told where he found the gumption to strut his meager stuff before the same footlights that had illuminated the talents of Ella Fitzgerald, Gladys Knight and Michael Jackson. A second and more kindly presence kept urging him to wriggle off the hook. The next stop would be his last chance to walk across the platform and jump the first train home. "Save yourself," the voice said, reminding him yet again that the Wednesday crowd at the Apollo was the meanest, most capricious mob since the days of Nero's circus and the Christian martyrs. Arthur refused to listen, finding within his 22-year-old heart a last, untapped reservoir of ambition to carry him out into the whirl of 125th Street.

Bright and unblinking, the marquee rose above the horizon of the subway staircase: TOMORROW'S STARS TODAY -- RALPH COOPER PRESENTS AMATEUR NIGHT AT THE APOLLO. Tomorrow's stars! He liked the sound of it. He pushed the stage- door buzzer and stepped into another world.

As Arthur followed the doorman's directions down a maze of passageways to the basement waiting room, another of the evening's aspiring showstoppers fell in behind. It would have been hard to find two folks more different. Where Johnson looked like a jockey in an oversize sweater, New Arrival Steve Cruz was packed into a double-breasted, knife-sharp example of the dry cleaner's art. Their attitudes too were poles apart.

"Whatever happens tonight, that's fine with me," Cruz remarked while they were waiting. "Three hundred and sixty-five days of the year I'm plain old Steve Cruz, the guy who drives his truck up to construction sites. But tonight I'm going to be the One and Only Steve Cruz, Live at the Apollo. Winning would be nice, but being out there and singing, that's good enough for me."

For anyone with dreams not daubed in greasepaint, the Apollo's peculiar magic can be a little hard to fathom. That night's first-place winner -- an honor determined solely by the applause -- would pocket just $200. And, of course, there is that infamous Apollo audience, an orchestra and two balconies bursting with folks who give no quarter. Ella Fitzgerald's hazing is a legend. She managed no more than a few off-key notes before Master of Ceremonies Ralph Cooper came out to save her. Stilling the jeers, he won her a reprieve and she started again. On the second try, she brought down the house.

Among the agents who roam the communal dressing room, talk of Cooper is couched in terms of awe. "He's a saint. The world will never know how many big names owe everything to him," says Bobby Robinson, a producer who has prowled the performers' room for 30 years.

Upstairs, where he is searching for a pink tie that will do justice to his natty brown suit, Cooper is a picture of tranquillity. In a few minutes, he'll saunter into the spotlight. As always, the crowd will treat him like a favorite uncle, respectfully silent while he explains the rules.

"If you love 'em, let 'em know. Stand up and cheer and dance and tell 'em they're terrific," he'll say. "But if you don't like 'em, if you think they deserve to be sent back to the woodshed, you should let 'em know that too."

Swapping greetings with the regulars who drift in and out at will, Cooper has to be prodded before he'll explain just how he does it. "The Apollo is a very sophisticated audience, but that doesn't mean they're fair, least not all the time. If I wasn't here to keep control, it wouldn't matter how good some kid was. They'd just tear the act to pieces, never give the ones who deserve it a chance. But you know what? The ones that are going to make it, they'll always be back. If they've got what it takes, they'll stick to it till they make it."

For most of nine sad years, up until 1985, the Apollo was a shuttered reminder of Harlem's faded grandeur. The problem was simple economics. By the mid-'70s, big-name acts wanted so much money that it was impossible to squeeze a worthwhile profit out of the "small" 1,500-seat auditorium. Until the theater's closing, Cooper's amateurs still packed 'em in, but on most other evenings, the place was dead and empty.

Thanks to an in-house video complex that captures the star turns -- George Benson, the Whispers and others -- for television syndication, the Apollo is back in the black. As for amateur night, that has always been cheap entertainment, with the best seats going for $15 and most costing just $5. Cooper is proud that Wednesday is still a family night.

He is in fine form tonight, even if the same thing cannot be said for some of his would-be stars. At times he's a campy wonder, flouncing a hip to announce, "Honeee, I've had my fun. I've been uptown at the Apollo, don't you know?" At other moments he seems to share the crowd's delight at the ineptitude of the worst performers. "So that's how they sing in Georgia," he sniffs, after a young man who'd driven all the way from Atlanta falls to pieces at center stage.

It was precisely the sort of thing that Apollo crowds love to see, the ritual of public humiliation that also awaited Arthur Johnson. He tried, he gave it everything. "You and I together/ The dream seemed so real . . .," he sang, embellishing the slinky lyrics with pelvic thrusts and a swaying imitation of sensuality. But the song, Keith Sweat's soul hit I Want Her, doomed him. Some classic Motown would have given him a fighting chance: the familiar opening chords might have warmed the crowd before he even opened his mouth. But Sweat's ode to funky frustration was fraught with peril. Topping Billboard's soul chart, it was so hot that even the most gifted mimic could not have carried it off, at least not here.

"I want that baby," Arthur crooned on, uselessly, because not even Ralph Cooper could save him from the avalanche of jeers. Given the chance to stop, shake it off and start all over, he walked back to the spotlight like a man on his way to the gallows.

There was no hope, and he knew it. As sheer terror turned his voice into a strangulated croak, the sound of mocking laughter joined the catcalls. The last and most feared of the Apollo's resident indignities was but seconds away.

Then it came -- the shriek of a siren so loud it silenced even the crowd's mocking roar. Arthur reacted like so many others: he turned into a rock. His eyes glazed, his mouth opened, his hand gripping the microphone like a cigar- store Indian, the young man needed a jolt to make his feet carry him to safety. In the wings, Cooper shrugged. Since his siren had not worked, he had no choice but to send in the clown.

If failure has a human face, it is undoubtedly the Day-Glo visage of the Apollo clown, Wednesday night's equivalent of old vaudeville's hook around the neck. Feet flapping, arms flailing, trousers billowing, horn honking, he capered onstage to the immense delight of all but his mute victim. Arthur took one look and ran like a rabbit. Downstairs, he tried to be positive: "Tonight, well, I guess I wasn't good enough. But I'll be back."

Glad-handing Steve Cruz had a better night. He tied for third place and won an invitation to return for the monthly finals. "It really was my night. I sang at the Apollo, and they liked me," Cruz said over a Dixie Cup toast. "Tonight I really was the One and Only Steve Cruz. Tremendous!"